Going Dutch with German Writers (16): Drinking with Deniz

Who?
Deniz Utlu writes plays, essays and micro-stories and curates a literary events series for the Maxim-Gorki-Theater. His marvellous debut novel, Die Ungehaltenen, came out on the 10th of March.

Where?
Mister Hu bar, Habibi Winterfeldtplatz, Green Door

What?
We both start off with margaritas (with salt) and I switch to gin and tonic at Green Door because they have posh gin, then we have a Coke and Deniz has a mini-whisky to finish off.

What did we talk about?
Things get off to a slow start because we were originally supposed to meet at Maigold on Merseburgstraße, which looks totally classy but is closed on Mondays. But Schöneberg is Deniz’s hood and he knows it like the back of his hand, so off we trot to Mister Hu. On the way there, it turns out that once again, I have failed to communicate the purpose of our drinking session efficiently. Poor Deniz thought it was just a social occasion (we’ve known each other for a couple of years, since he was a student) and thinks he ought to have shaved if I’m going to be taking photos. I think I really ought to ask men out for a drink more often; they do seem to like it.

Deniz works part time for a human rights organization, saving the world, and has just been to Columbia for a meeting. Apparently this sounds more glamorous than it is, but there were some margaritas involved. Margaritas it is, then – we don’t even open up the menu. They take a while to arrive but when they do they’re scrumptious. So how’s the new book doing? Deniz is cautiously optimistic; he’s from Hannover and had a reading there a few days ago and the Hannoversche Allgemeine gave it a good review. Ah, yes. I’ve been thinking about him coming from Hannover rather than Kreuzberg, like the narrator of his novel. It’ll be interesting to see how people react to that, because it would be very easy to assume the protagonist is his alter ego. I say I can see a couple of parallels to his life, but they’re more in the character’s sentiments than his actions.

The book is about Elyas, a young Turkish German who grows up in Kreuzberg, an only child with no one to argue with on the back seat of the car. In the first part he’s an angry young man and his father is dying, and the second part is a road trip to Turkey with a woman whose father is dying. We talk about Turkish-German writers of various generations. There’s a great woman poet around Deniz’s age, he tells me, and I’ve forgotten her name but I’ve seen her reading, I’m fairly sure. Gorgeous, with amazing curly hair? And her poems are very kitsch? Yes, that’s her, but they’re supposed to be like that, he says, because they’re based on the divan tradition. I feel bad because I totally didn’t get that. I’m not quite sure what the divan tradition is but it all makes more sense now.

We talk about kitsch in his writing – he’s a big Leonard Cohen fan and he puts it there on purpose, and there’s humour and sadness too. Did I not notice how funny his book is? I did at his reading at the Maxim-Gorki-Theater, which was an amazing occasion with three actors and a wonderful musician, although one of the actors hammed it up too much for my taste. But when I read the book beforehand I was really stressed and found it mainly depressing, in a good way. But it’s actually very funny as well as angry and sad, and very good of course. We talk about Navid Kermani, speaking of kitsch in novels, because I’ve just read his Große Liebe and loved it. It’s full of medieval Persian literature, which just drips with sentiment. I love the way Kermani plays it off against his rather banal 1980s love story; I promise to lend Deniz the book.

Being paranoid about the U8

© Katy Derbyshire

Deniz ran into another writer earlier on, Bernd Cailloux. Another Schöneberger, and we both agree he’s as cool as billy-o. He wrote a novel called Das Geschäftsjahr 68/69 about how he and his mates “invented” the – what’s it called? – stroboscope, or introduced it in Germany, Deniz tells me, and made loads of money and then lost it all again. They tried not to be capitalists but they were actually rather good at it. I say Communists make the best capitalists – I had a school exchange with the Soviet Union and they were all ace at Monopoly because they knew how it worked and had no pity; none of your “I can’t take my sister’s last thousand” business. I refrain from drawing conclusions about today’s Russian Federation.

At some point we talk about buses, as you do. One of Deniz’s first jobs was as a tour guide on coach tours. He was nineteen and he was supposed to be the boss for the drivers, who of course couldn’t possibly take him seriously. He managed it with a mixture of witty chat and pretend serious authority. Most of the drivers (“very multicultural, lots of Poles and Turks”) would sneak a beer or a joint on their breaks but there were some from South Tyrol who were really intellectual – they’d sit down and start reading novels. Deniz tells me he once fell off a London bus when the doors opened unexpectedly. He landed in the gutter and had to use a walking stick for the rest of his stay. I talk about all the crimes I’ve seen committed on London night buses, including drug dealing and grievous bodily harm, and also eating kebabs and very loud singing and mass fare-dodging. People in Berlin are paranoid about the U8, says Deniz, but they should try London night buses.

We decide to move on; Deniz wants to go to Green Door. On the way we stop for food and I get very nostalgic. I learned German at the Hartnackschule on Nollendorfplatz in the early 90s and had my first ever falafel at Habibi on Winterfeldtplatz, where we are now. I haven’t got much better at holding it all together since then; Deniz kindly comments that the large serving of sauce is probably to blame, but I think the mess I make is mostly my fault. In retrospect, it could have been the alcohol.

Very West Berlin

© Katy Derbyshire

Onion-infused, we ring the bell at Green Door and a man eyeballs us while I try to look more sober than I am; he grudgingly grants us entry. It’s a nice place, if a little dark. Very West Berlin, and I mean that in a good way. I remember to take the little wooden stick out of my gin and tonic before drinking it. The conversation is a little hazy in my mind now, though. I say if I were to write a book I would only write one, and it would have to be perfect in every way. But Deniz wants to write lots and lots. No, he’s not obsessed with a certain subject, not at all, not like Josef Winkler, no no. He met Josef Winkler at the bar in the LCB once and Josef Winkler told him something very wise but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was now. Really very good gin.

Deniz talks about Camus and Horváth but that doesn’t last long because I’ve never read either of them, and Deniz is far too polite to hold a monologue. I do remember a monologue on my part about how bringing up children is a dilemma because you want them to have a smooth childhood but that makes them into dull adults, or at least incapable of being writers because writers have to have had a terrible childhood. I was obviously well into cliché-land. Now that we are sozzled, of course, I remember we need to take some photos. Not ideal timing. Most of them are very bad, or of all the pretty empty glasses. I do apologize. At least Deniz didn’t have a shave especially.

So we leave, and it’s nearly two in the morning, and Deniz kindly walks me to the bank so I can take a taxi home, and I regale him with yet more nostalgic tales of early-90s Berlin – in this case the time I sat right outside what is now the Sparkasse next to the Beastie Boys and eavesdropped on their conversation while they ate cheap pizza. The Beastie Boys! I don’t think Deniz quite realizes the import of the occasion. I have managed to go all evening without once mentioning the fact that he’s ten years younger than me, but now I make up for it by banging on about the olden days for what feels like ten minutes non-stop. The taxi driver may also have got a bit of an earful.

Hangover?
My first thought on waking up is “Onions!” There were really a lot of onions in that falafel sandwich. Contrary to all logic, I am also incredibly hungry. The hangover takes a while to kick in but does so exactly while I’m at the hairdresser’s, which makes me gruff and incommunicative. It’s OK though because I tell her I was out with a man ten years younger than me and she looks impressed. Poor Deniz had to get to work by nine.